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NDTV
2 hours ago
- Business
- NDTV
Why A US Mayor Wants Thousands Of His Workers To Use ChatGPT
Before the mayor of San Jose, California, arrives at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new business, his aides ask ChatGPT to help draft some talking points. "Elected officials do a tremendous amount of public speaking," said Mayor Matt Mahan, whose recent itinerary has taken him from new restaurant and semiconductor startup openings to a festival of lowriding car culture. Other politicians might be skittish admitting a chatbot co-wrote their speech or that it helped draft a $5.6 billion budget for the new fiscal year, but Mahan is trying to lead by example, pushing a growing number of the nearly 7,000 government workers running Silicon Valley's biggest city to embrace artificial intelligence technology. Mahan said adopting AI tools will eliminate drudge work and help the city better serve its roughly 1 million residents. He's hardly the only public or private sector executive directing an AI-or-bust strategy, though in some cases, workers have found that the costly technology can add hassles or mistakes. "The idea is to try things, be really transparent, look for problems, flag them, share them across different government agencies, and then work with vendors and internal teams to problem solve," Mahan said in an interview. "It's always bumpy with new technologies." By next year, the city intends to have 1,000, or about 15%, of its workers trained to use AI tools for a variety of tasks, including pothole complaint response, bus routing and using vehicle-tracking surveillance cameras to solve crimes. One of San Jose's early adopters was Andrea Arjona Amador, who leads electric mobility programmes at the city's transportation department. She has already used ChatGPT to secure a $12 million grant for electric vehicle chargers. Arjona Amador set up a customised "AI agent" to review the correspondence she was receiving about various grant proposals and asked it to help organise the incoming information, including due dates. Then, she had it help draft the 20-page document. So far, San Jose has spent more than $35,000 to purchase 89 ChatGPT licenses - at $400 per account - for city workers to use. "The way it used to work, before I started using this, we spent a lot of evenings and weekends trying to get grants to the finish line," she said. The Trump administration later rescinded the funding, so she pitched a similar proposal to a regional funder not tied to the federal government. Arjona Amador, who learned Spanish and French before she learned English, also created another customised chatbot to edit the tone and language of her professional writings. With close relationships to some of the tech industry's biggest players, including San Francisco-based OpenAI and Mountain View-based Google, the mayors of the Bay Area's biggest cities are helping to promote the type of AI adoption that the tech industry is striving for, while also promising guidelines and standards to avoid the technology's harms. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced a plan on July 14 to give nearly 30,000 city workers, including nurses and social workers, access to Microsoft's Copilot chatbot, which is based on the same technology that powers ChatGPT. San Francisco's plan says it comes with "robust privacy and bias safeguards, and clear guidelines to ensure technology enhances - not replaces - human judgment." San Jose has similar guidelines and hasn't yet reported any major mishaps with its pilot projects. Such problems have attracted attention elsewhere because of the technology's propensity to spew false information, known as hallucinations. ChatGPT's digital fingerprints were found on an error-filled document published in May by US Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" commission. In Fresno, California, a school official was forced to resign after saying she was too trusting of an AI chatbot that fabricated information in a document. While some government agencies have been secretive about when they turn to chatbots for help, Mahan is open about his ChatGPT-written background memos that he turns to when making speeches. "Historically, that would have taken hours of phone calls and reading, and you just never would have been able to get those insights," he said. "You can knock out these tasks at a similar or better level of quality in a lot less time." He added, however, that "you still need a human being in the loop. You can't just kind of press a couple of buttons and trust the output. You still have to do some independent verification. You have to have logic and common sense and ask questions." Earlier this year, when OpenAI introduced a new pilot product called Operator, it promised a new kind of tool that went beyond a chatbot's capabilities. Instead of just analysing documents and producing passages of text, it could also access a computer system and schedule calendars or perform tasks on a person's behalf. Developing and selling such "AI agents" is now a key focus for the tech industry. More than an hour's drive east of Silicon Valley, where the Bay Area merges into Central Valley farm country, Jamil Niazi, director of information technology at the city of Stockton, had big visions for what he could do with such an agent. Perhaps the parks and recreation department could let an AI agent help residents book a public park or swimming pool for a birthday party. Or residents could find out how crowded the pool was before packing their swim clothes. Six months later, however, after completing a proof-of-concept phase, the city didn't buy a full license for the technology due to the cost. The market research group Gartner recently predicted that over 40% of "agentic AI" projects will be canceled before the end of 2027, "due to escalating costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls." San Jose's mayor remains bullish about the potential for these AI tools to help workers "in the bowels of bureaucracy" to rapidly speed up their digital paperwork. "There's just an amazing amount of bureaucracy that large organizations have to have," Mahan said. "Whether it's finance, accounting, HR or grant writing, those are the kinds of roles where we think our employees can be 20 (to) 50% more productive - quickly."
Miami Herald
20 hours ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Popular beauty brand files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Beauty, skincare, and cosmetic product manufacturers have faced many of the same economic challenges that other retailers have in the last three years. Rising labor and product costs exacerbated by inflation, increased interest rates, cautious consumers who are watching their budgets in uncertain economic times, and fierce competition forced beauty brands to close and to file for bankruptcy. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter Major cosmetics brand Avon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2024, two years after another huge brand, Revlon, filed for bankruptcy in June 2022. Related: National work clothing retail chain files Chapter 11 bankruptcy This year, beauty technology company Cutera filed for a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 5 to reduce its debt by $400 million, and award-winning cosmetics company SBLA Beauty filed for Chapter 11 protection on March 11 to reorganize its business and restructure its debt. Telehealth company Hims & Hers Health shut down its acne treatment dermatology business, Apostrophe, on March 7 after buying the San Francisco-based company four years ago for about $190 million. Hims & Hers Health had another setback after forming a partnership with Novo Nordisk on the FDA-approved Wegovy obesity drug in April 2025. Novo Nordisk terminated the arrangement on June 23, 2025, over its concerns about Hims & Hers' "illegal mass compounding and deceptive marketing," according to a statement. Hims & Hers has not filed for bankruptcy at last check. Another skincare brand Futurewise Inc. also shut down its business as it discontinued orders on its website beginning March 24, 2025. Futurewise offered its skincare products Slug Boost, Slug Cream, Slug Balm, and Face Melt, which featured its "slugging" practice of skincare. Slugging appears to have arrived in the early 2010's with one of the first documented mentions of the term on a Reddit thread, the website said. The practice has since developed a cult-like following, Futurewise claimed. Futurewise products were also available at CVS stores, according to the skincare company's website. The skincare brand also has not filed for bankruptcy protection at last check. Popular beauty brand Essations filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to reorganize its business and restructure its debts on July 18. The Chicago Heights, Ill.-based personal products manufacturer and distributor, which was established in 1981, filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, listing $100,000 to $500,000 in assets and $1 million to $10 million in debts. Related: Home Depot rival files Chapter 11 bankruptcy in distress The debtor's largest creditors include the U.S. Small Business Administration, owed $1.01 million; Nikolovski Properties, owed $115,000 in landlord claims; and the Internal Revenue Service, owed $53,000 for taxes in 2021. More bankruptcy: Major iconic food brand files for Chapter 11 bankruptcyPopular Dairy Queen rival franchisee files Chapter 11 bankruptcyPopular vision care chain files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Other creditors include Emco Chemical Distributors, Kraft Chemicals, and Neves Global Resources. The debtor's Subchapter V petition indicated that funds would be available to distribute to unsecured creditors after administrative expenses are paid. Essation's products include a variety of haircare brands, including Essations Collection, Naked by Essations, Naked X by Essations, Textures by Naked, and Tea Tree Collection. Its haircare products include shampoos, conditioners, stylers, finishers, travel, and skin care and are available at over 170 haircare product dealers nationwide, according to its website. The company's haircare products address several hair needs, such as hair growth, volume, moisture, scalp care, hair repair, color-treated hair, frizzy hair, edges, detangling, detoxing, shine, and protein. Related: Popular pizza dining chain franchisee files Chapter 11 bankruptcy The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
The Hindu
a day ago
- Business
- The Hindu
OpenAI launches $50 million fund to support nonprofits, community organisations
ChatGPT maker OpenAI is launching a $50 million fund to support nonprofit and community organisations, the artificial intelligence company said on Friday. The fund is the first action following a recommendations report from the San Francisco-based company's nonprofit commission, which was formed in April to guide OpenAI's philanthropic efforts. OpenAI has been working to revamp its corporate structure, which it says is necessary in order to continue raising the massive amounts of capital needed to stay competitive in the AI arms race, a move it is trying to balance with its founding mission, as a nonprofit, to develop AI for the public good. Currently, its nonprofit arm owns and controls its for-profit arm, and OpenAI plans to convert the for-profit entity into a public benefit corporation, of which the nonprofit parent would become a shareholder. The nonprofit commission was established as part of OpenAI's efforts to show that it can remain true to its founding mission despite the corporate revamp. OpenAI said the fund will facilitate partnerships to implement AI in sectors such as education, economic opportunity, community organising and healthcare. It will also back community-led research and innovation focused on using AI for public good. The nonprofit commission submitted its recommendations report Thursday, following interviews with over 500 nonprofits and community experts.
HKFP
a day ago
- Business
- HKFP
US bank Wells Fargo employee blocked from leaving China: reports
US bank Wells Fargo told AFP Friday it was working to help one of its employees return to the United States, after reports they had been barred from leaving China. Multiple media outlets reported earlier Friday that the employee involved was Chenyue Mao, an Atlanta-based managing director who was born in Shanghai. Mao had entered the country in recent weeks but is now unable to leave, they said. 'We are closely tracking this situation and working through the appropriate channels so our employee can return to the United States as soon as possible,' the company told AFP when asked to confirm the reports. The company declined to give further details. The San Francisco-based bank is now restricting its employees from visiting China following this case, reports said. Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said he was 'not familiar' with the specific case when asked about it at a news conference on Friday. 'China is a country governed by the rule of law. Whether a person is Chinese or foreign, in China both must respect China's laws,' Lin added. Global firms have faced an increasingly difficult business environment in China in recent years, industry groups say, citing a lack of transparency on data laws and prolonged detentions of employees in the country. A court in China sentenced a Japanese businessman from pharmaceutical company Astellas to three-and-a-half years in prison on Wednesday for spying. Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca in November said that the head of its China operations Leon Wang had been detained, after reports the firm was under investigation for potentially illegal data collection and drug imports. And in 2023 a senior executive at US risk advisory firm Kroll was prohibited from leaving China, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Business Times
a day ago
- Business
- Business Times
Los Angeles sues Airbnb for alleged price gouging following wildfires
LOS Angeles sued Airbnb, accusing the home rental company of allowing price gouging affecting at least 2,000 properties during January's wildfires in Southern California, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said on Friday. According to a complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, rental prices rose more than 10 per cent for 'at least two thousand—and possibly more than three thousand' Airbnb properties in the city between Jan 7 and 17. Los Angeles said the increases occurred before Airbnb disabled its 'smart pricing' tool, which lets owners have rental prices adjust automatically based on demand, for Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Airbnb was accused of violating a California law that prohibits prices of essential goods and services from rising more than 10 per cent following a state of emergency. Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles on Jan 7, triggering the state's anti-gouging law, and it has been extended several times. Feldstein Soto said that while Airbnb, with an estimated 80 per cent market share in the city, has taken steps to curtail price gouging, evidence indicates it may be continuing. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Tuesday, 12 pm Property Insights Get an exclusive analysis of real estate and property news in Singapore and beyond. Sign Up Sign Up She separately accused the San Francisco-based company of misrepresenting to prospective renters that it has 'verified' hosts and property locations on its website, some of which don't exist. In a statement, Airbnb said the company, chief executive Brian Chesky, and its affiliated nonprofit have contributed nearly US$30 million to fire recovery efforts, including free emergency housing to nearly 24,000 people. It also said Airbnb hosts receive error messages if they try to boost prices more than 10 per cent from pre-emergency rates. The lawsuit accuses Airbnb of violating California's unfair competition law. It seeks an injunction to stop illegal rents during the state of emergency, plus civil fines of up to US$2,500 per violation. The Southern California wildfires killed at least 30 people and destroyed or damaged more than 16,000 structures. Much of the damage came from the Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades and the Eaton Fire in Altadena. The fires charred an area larger than Paris. REUTERS
